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MASS MURDER ON THE "SHORE"
Barbarism raised its fiendish and ravaging hand in a most heinous fashion at Salisbury last Friday night when a murderous and infuriated mob, saturated with revenge and grim malignancy, dragged a Negro from a cot in a hospital, where he lay blinded from a self inflicted bullet wound, to the Court House Square several blocks away and hanged him from a tree. This diabolical act in. which atrociousness was further emphasized by the burning of the victim's dead body, strikes back as a bitter mockery to the century old. "law abiding spirit" claim of that section when its citizens, with bitter deliberation, dragged the fair name of the State of Maryland i down to disgrace and in their orgy of a most repugnant crime, changed the regard of a community that heretofore has been heralded as the Garden Spot of the State, into a Golgotha.
True the crime committed by Williams, the Negro, was terrible; he had shot and killed a prominent citizen of the city without warning, without mercy. Yet, black as was his crime, the law of the land assured him protection until that law should have the opportunity to hear his case in an orderly ( trial, and then decided his fate. The protections provided by | the statutes were however, swept aside, and by taking the law into their own hands, the members of this Eastern Shore mob have overthrown one of the very foundations of our civilized government.
The deed is done. The mangled and charred carcass of the Negro has been returned to dust; his soul has been sent into eternity by a depraved mob and mob lynching is nothing less than mass murder. The reproach is upon the citizens of Salisbury and their act should not and must not be condoned. Governor Ritchie has taken the right steps in ordering the matter thoroughly investigated by Wicomico county authorities with the assistance of the Attorney-General. Nothing should be left undone to bring the perpetrators of this unspeakable crime to justice and by so doing give notice that such vicious outrages will not be tolerated in Maryland.
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